I've talked to a few enterprises this week, mostly SOHO and SMBs, who've made a leap from tape disk to other options including online storage services and even a cool tool that lets you tap unused workstation drive space to build an internal LAN-based mini SAN of sorts.

Want to know the one thing each had in common?

Well no one had actually tried recovering or retrieving housed data. And I know they're not alone--pundits repeatedly talk about clients who never go the full mile in testing data storage and disaster recovery programs and technology. They shove valuable docs into a shiny vault, the files are sliced and diced and dispersed, and everyone's feeling good.

But what if pulling those chunks of data back together doesn't work as smooth as expected? What if a few chunks have gone missing? If you couldn't sleep due to concerns that the tape broke overnight, how the heck will you get any zzz's if you don't test your new fangled storage tool.

I mean, yikes.